Notes from the Underground

This book is surprisingly funny

Pretty good listen while taking a walk, would have given 3 1/2 stars if possible.

Dostoyevsky is very clearly a narcissist and admits so in the book (thought not using that word exactly), and I relate to some of the ideas he has, specifically those relating to man needing and even subconsciously enjoying pain and suffering. I also agree that people often act against their own self interest when bored, simply to express their individual self, to validate their being, this self damaging behavior is still very relevant today as society becomes more utopian/developed. Our lives are always becoming easier and we have so much free time on our hands, it’s almost as if we are now “revolting” against progress simply bc we have nothing left to do, it sometimes feels like everything has already been done. In the memoir he says people combat this by getting lost in books, well today it would be social media instead though it seems humans always have something to distract themselves from their mundane lives. This feels like it goes hand in hand with “The end of history and the last man” by Francis Fukuyama.

His view on love is very interesting to me, I’d never considered that point of view, most people today would say it isn’t “real love” but maybe in some ways it is. Though abusive by todays standards and would not be tolerated (for good reason) I still can’t decide if that’s love or not.